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We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

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Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#51

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

fmajid wrote: post #40
rm445 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These large-scale war games aren't just an opinion or a white paper though. Maybe better to ask something like how often an unconventional win in a war game could actually be replicated by an adversary in real life. I seem to recall a similar response to massed small boats (simulating) taking out a U.S. carrier in war games a few years ago. Implying that the Persian Gulf is far more dangerous than previously understo…

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/aug/21/usa.julianborg... General Van Riper used low-tech but effective techniques like using motorcycle messengers to transmit orders in a way that could not be intercepted by US ELINT/COMINT or blocked by jamming. We are lucky Saddam did not have inventive Marine generals, because any general smart enough to be effective would have been eliminated as a potential threat to his r…

> because any general smart enough to be effective would have been eliminated as a potential threat to his regime.

Saved our asses in the European theater, in WWII. Hitler was an insecure micromanager.

His generals represented generations of military expertise. They were really good.

There's a number of places where Germany could have won the war, but were short-circuited by der dumkopf fuhrer

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#52

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

quercusa wrote: post #41
kevmo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out the most expensive War Games in history -- the USA got annihilated, and there were a lot of hurt feelings. The Lt. Gen. quit in the middle of the games, because he kept winning and they kept changing the rules to force a USA victory. Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an asymmetric strategy, in particular, using old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated elec…

You'd think Blue would have prepared for small boat suicide attacks less than two years after the USS Cole attack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing

No one expects the "loyal opposition", oh wait, they did ...

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#53

Post by CamperBob2 »

tpmx wrote: post #46
pmontra wrote: post #15

In other wargames: You might remember that the Ronald Reagan was sunk by a Swedish stealth submarine in 2005 [1] and that there is little hope to save the Baltic and Taiwan if Russia and China decide to occupy them [2]. [1] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/war-games-swedish-ste... [2] https://breakingdefense.com/2019/03/us-gets-its-ass-handed-t...

[1]: > Key Point: Why are we still building aircraft carriers when even Sweden can sink them? Oi. Still a fair question, though.

One complication is that sinking a US carrier would likely trigger nuclear retaliation. Even if the enemy is in a good position to do so, that will make them think twice.

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#54

Post by sthnblllII »

FDR goaded Japan into that attack by cutting off their oil and suppressed intelligence about the impending attack to ensure a decisive entry into WWII over the opposition of 90% of the American public. Having political leadership so opposed to the will of the people is a state US 'democracy' seems perpetually unable to end, re Iraq, Vietnam, WWI, WWII etc. Hearing US lecture governments that fight on behalf of their people instead of manipulating them into war would be a national embarrassment if Americans weren't firmly ensconced in their pro-US empire media bubble.

PS: FDR began sending supplies to the USSR before pear harbor despite its mass murder and atrocities across Eurasia and extreme unpopularity of the Soviet government with the US public. The embargo with Japan was made for geopolitical reasons and any "humanitarian" argument is post hoc.

EDIT: Remarkably, President Herbert Hoover remained politically active in the post-FDR media landscape and his account of the events and of FDRs actions leaves little room for doubt about FDRs aims in his foreign policy with Japan.

https://www.hoover.org/research/freedom-betrayed-herbert-hoo...

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#55

Post by KineticLensman »

rightbyte wrote: post #49
travisjungroth wrote: post #2

This story is amazing. The story of US war games seems to commonly be "Yeah the Read Team won but..." and no changes are made. Maybe those are just the stories I hear. It's also interesting to consider if the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor would have happened if it weren't for our own dress rehearsals we carried out in front of the Japanese. Maybe war games are a bad idea when they're too big to keep secret and you'…

> The story of US war games seems to commonly be "Yeah the Read Team won but..." and no changes are made. Maybe those are just the stories I hear. War games are not fair really. For either side. No-one know what the actual outcome of a manouver would be. Also, if Red's commander is way better, Blue's paper strategy might still be preferable. My feeling is that big military exercises is a exercise in logistics foremos…

> My feeling is that big military exercises is a exercise in logistics foremost.

Varies. Getting people familiar with command and control procedures is a key theme.

In the UK, 'Army HQ' manages the process of ensuring that forces are ready for operations - which is where the training happens. When the country deploys troops on an operation, various units and sub-units are assembled into a mission-specific force which is ultimately under the control of a Joint Task Force HQ, not the Army's peacetime HQ. Exercises are a key part of the peacetime 'readiness cycle' through which the various force elements are prepared for ops. An exercise might test the staff of a battlegroup HQ to receive orders from a Brigade HQ ('Higher Control' in exercise-speak) and in turn generate orders that are given to its constituent sub-unit HQs. Such an exercise might last for a week and have separate phases for Planning and Execution activities. The different HQ elements need this type of training because the precise mission-specific C2 arrangements simply don't exist when the forces are in their peace-time barracks.

Logistics are entirely simulated in such an exercise so that you don't need half the army around to train 50-100 staff. In fact there is such a thing as a Tactical Exercise Without Troops that totally focusses on HQ processes so as to avoid wasting the troops' time while the staff in the exercising HQ get their act together.

Field exercises using laser-simulated weapons might involve 'last mile' logistics activities but there is no way they will involve the complex logistics supply chains of a real deployed force.

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#56

Post by goodcanadian »

duckfang wrote: post #6

Lets remind us our dates. July 4, 1898, the Newlands Resolution was a joint resolution by the United States Congress to annex the independent Republic of Hawaii. In 1900, Congress occupied the Territory of Hawaii, despite the opposition of most native Hawaiians. Dec 7, 1941 is when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawai'i, an occupied territory. August 21, 1959 is when they were forcibly turned into a state, af…

I would point out that 94% of residents voted for statehood.

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#57

Post by credit_guy »

jabl wrote: post #21
mcguire wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it did. See Shattered Sword by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully. (One additional feature often seen in the story is the part where the umpire "resurrects" the two Japanese carriers which were "sunk" in the attack---that part is usually overplayed, since it would be a waste of time to continue the game without the two carriers and there were still questions to be answered.)

I keep hearing good things about that book. Alas, my interest in Midway only seems to go so far and I'm finding myself unwilling to commit to actually reading that book. Oh well, maybe one day..

I don't have much time lately to actually read books, so I listen to them on my bike ride to and from work. I have had "Shattered Sword" as a paperback book for more than 10 years, and never read more than 2 pages in it. Once I started listening to the audiobook, I pretty much had to finish it. It's about 24 hours of audio. Longer than it would take to read it, but if you don't find time to read it, it's quite a good substitute.

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#58

Post by greggyb »

jabl wrote: post #31

Well, in retrospect it's easy to say that air power is the future and battleships are obsolete. But with the information available at the time, I don't think it really was that clear back in 1932. Back then, no capital ship had been sunk let alone been severely damaged(?) by aircraft. Aircraft, and in particular naval aircraft, at the time were flimsy biplanes, with monoplanes slowly entering the scene. Sinking a bat…

> I mean, put yourself into the hypothetical supreme naval planner of, say, the US or Japan at the time. Are you really going to gamble your entire nations (or empires, if you will) capability to project force overseas on the notion that air power is the future and battleships are obsolete?

Per the fine article, Japan did devote their preparations to air superiority and carried out exactly the attack forewarned by the 1932 war games. So, yes, that seems to have been a good strategy.

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#59

Post by senko »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #53
tpmx wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[1]: > Key Point: Why are we still building aircraft carriers when even Sweden can sink them? Oi. Still a fair question, though.

One complication is that sinking a US carrier would likely trigger nuclear retaliation. Even if the enemy is in a good position to do so, that will make them think twice.

Would it, tho?

Answering a conventional strike in international waters with a nuclear one (and at different target instead of the original attacker, since you can't really nuke a sub) is crossing the Rubicon, there's no going back from that.

Re: We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

#60

Post by fatbird »

tpmx wrote: post #46
pmontra wrote: post #15

In other wargames: You might remember that the Ronald Reagan was sunk by a Swedish stealth submarine in 2005 [1] and that there is little hope to save the Baltic and Taiwan if Russia and China decide to occupy them [2]. [1] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/war-games-swedish-ste... [2] https://breakingdefense.com/2019/03/us-gets-its-ass-handed-t...

[1]: > Key Point: Why are we still building aircraft carriers when even Sweden can sink them? Oi. Still a fair question, though.

Because they're the greatest peacetime weapons system ever invented. Until hot war breaks out, which seems increasingly unlikely under the umbrella of nuclear weapons and MAD, they are the premier force projection tool around--in essence, the best bluff a superpower can make, and crucially, it's worked since WW2.

That said, while incidents like Sweden "sinking" a carrier have happened and embarassed the Navy, carriers have been present in multiple wars since WW2 (Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Iraq War) and haven't been sunk. If it's really that easy, one would think it would have happened when enemies actually were motivated to inflict such a loss. This suggests that the wargame conditions aren't very reflective of actual doctrine.

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